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Figurative Language In Marie Howe's 'What The Living Do'

Decent Essays

Poets make books with poems that relate to each other. Marie Howe touches on topics related to herself throughout her book “What the Living Do”. She begins her book by going in the past and narrating events, but the main idea behind majority of the poems are on her brother John Howe, Father, and herself. Her brother John died of an AIDs related illness and her father failing to quit drinking alcohol. Howe is very reminiscent in this book. With the sequence of the poems it appears like a story and she used great figurative language to complement them. Although her language and her meanings in the poems are clear her consistent use of couplet stanza form does not always compliment her material, but her title goes perfectly with the way the …show more content…

Marie Howe then says, “I became a boy again, and shouted stop”. This line connects with the poem “The Boy” because she brought sex into play. She could have been implying that women are supposed to be quiet and allow men to be dominant because she did not feel as if she had the same power. In “Sixth Grade” Marie Howe then pleads for Charlie, one of her brother friends, to make them stop since they obviously would not listen to a female. She said that she became a girl-boy then made the plea for help to Charlie. This continues to show how Howe almost used the word boy for being brave and independent. Charlie later says for his gang to stop and they listen to him and put it to a cease. These two poems correlate because she ends the poem “The Boy” with her moral of the story which is related to the inequality of men and women and then in the poem “Sixth Grade” she gives a personal story where the moral is played out.
In the poem, “From my Father’s Side of the bed” to “In the Movies” creates a connection by foreshadowing the poem “In the Movies”. Also “In the Movies” goes great with “From my Father’s Side of the bed” because it clarifies that poem which assisted me. In the poem “In the Movies” Marie Howe talks about the barbaric behavior of males toward towards a female after war in a movie. The woman is pinned and raped as the husband is pinned and can listen to the sounds of her distress. Howe then makes the connection of how the man

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